Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness (In Thailand)

In the words of Thomas Jefferson“We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, amongst which are the preservation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”Some historians believe that Jefferson meant this to be the standard by which future governments should be judged and an international standard for then emerging countries.

And then we have Thailand

Some 237 years after Jefferson's words what do we have? In terms of understanding democratic ideals and the treatment of our fellow human beings, Thailand is obviously millennia behind the rest of the world. Only in the past decade has the word “democracy” raised it's head.

To explain this properly you have to scrutinize society in Thailand.

Firstly you have Bangkok. To this day for countless decades the elites of Bangkok believed that western education of their children at establishments such as Eton, Oxford, UCLA, Harvard and so on would solidify their power over society for generations to come. The thinking was and still is that these “brilliant” scholars are better than the “average” Thai. These people who still sit around the super hiso hotels and sunday morning massively expensive Dim Sum establishments just to be seen and nod their heads at any suitably dressed individual as if to know them, have no grasp on reality and some have personally told me that they believe Thailand should never have an elected government.

Their children have studied abroad for years. Now of course while abroad they behaved like the reserved Thai elites that they were brought up to be.

For the moms in Bangkok, of course your daughters were “good girls”. The following activities were definitely not experienced or witnessed in any way by your purer than pure young ladies. There were no frat parties, no drinking ever, of course cannabis was a big nono, they never went on spring break and got into dance offs by the pool in skimpy swimwear, they even up to their mid 20's never had boyfriends, there were no G strings, revealing bra's, piercings or anything else mommy would frown upon.

And then moms of Bangkok your daughter came home and she lied to you all big time, she was so tired from her western “education” that she was indeed a “good girl” again in Bangkok. None of the unmentionable things listed above ever happened, really mommy she never did that, no way.

So now the golden girl wants to be a Democrat Party politician, she truly has qualified in every sense of the word.

For the dads the story does not change except depending on currency exchange rates your sons paid substantially more for their “evenings out” than they would in Bkk. Check your credit card statements dads, that Las Vegas hotel really was expensive............ not to mention that Cancun trip, hard to understand how “dinner” could cost that much, I guess it depends what you are actually eating that dinner off, probably not a plate.......

And of course your sons too came back qualified politicians and quickly started interviewing female cousins with a view to marriage which pleased mommy beyond belief, a fresh face for the sunday morning Dim Sum show.

Secondly you have Thailand, the real Thailand. Where rather than run away from their families to party the sons and daughters bettered themselves closer to home, they of course did and were open enough to admit doing the same things as all late teens and twenty somethings do. They were not born with silver spoons but were born with heart and soul topped with a real sense of purpose to do well in life for themselves and their families. They however are looked down upon by the party girls and boys.

The truth of it all is that while rich mommy and daddy made catastrophic decisions for their kids, poor mommy and daddy were what they were supposed to be, they were “great parents”. Hence today in Thailand all these years after the words of Thomas Jefferson there is a sense of independence and democracy. This has been brought about about by the massive majority who did stay here and for some very unexplainable reason are more worldly than those who did not.

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